Saga of the Sacred Sapling
by Irresponsible Captain T
Summary: Serial Killings plauge Okayama. How are they related to Princess Aeka?


Disclaimer: The characters of Tenchi Muyo are not mine, but the   
property of Pioneer. If they were mine, I would be rolling in   
to dough and buying as much anime as i could carry and I would   
be writing episodes and I would RULE THE WORLD and...Wait, got   
a bit carried away there...Oh well. Anyway, they aren't mine.  
  
  
Saga of the Sacred Sapling  
Chapter One: Keepers of the Sacred Bark  
  
Detective Sargant Hideki Grogan knelt beside the prostrate  
form on the beach. "Well, Takei, I looks like the patrolman was   
right in calling us." Grogan was a tall, balding man. His features were   
mostly asian, but his aquiline nose and his surname suggested some anglo   
in his family tree. At 49 years of age, he was a homicide detective   
with the Okayama Police department. He wore a brown tweed suit jacket   
and tan slacks over an immaculate shirtfront. He had been wearing a   
tie, but that hadn't lasted more than a few minutes once the call   
came in. He hated ties.  
His partner, Sargant Takei Namura, nodded his head. "Yup.   
Slash marks and the rest of the periphenalia. Five'll get you ten   
they don't find anything in the wounds."  
Grogan stood up again and wiped sand off of his knees. "No   
bets here." The Okayama area had been plagued for the last few weeks   
by rash of murders that had the police baffled. This one was a case   
in point. The body lay upon a intricate drawing of a tree in the sand.   
It had been ritualistically disemboweled, with the organs set in   
specific locations on the diagram's branches. The body was that of a   
young woman, hardly 21, but that had not been a pattern. The last   
victim had been an 85-year-old man. There seemed to be no pattern at   
all to the deaths except that they had been localized to a single rural   
district in Okayama and had been done with some sort of sword. What   
really baffled the police were those sword marks on the bodys. The   
forensic team could never find any trace evidence in them.  
Whenever any item touched the body, it usually leaves a little  
bit of itself behind. But in all of these cases, there had been no metal   
or any other trace in any of the wounds. It was as if the wounds had   
opened by themselves. But the way that the body's were disemboweled   
suggested otherwise.  
Grogan sighed. These murders were happening about twice a week   
for two weeks now, and the Leiutenant had said that if another happened,   
he wasn't going to be able to keep a lid on it much longer. That meant   
that there would be more pressure from the top to solve a so far   
insoluble case. "We got anything new from this crime scene,Takei? We   
better, or this is going to be the worst day we've had in a long time."  
Namura smiled. "Well then, you'll be happy to know that there is   
something new. Not a fingerprint, but something that just might help.   
This girl obviously put up more of a struggle than the others. We got   
some fibers from beneath the fingers of the severed hand. The ME said   
that death occured between 2 and 3 o'clock last night."  
Grogan had forgotten to look at that. On each body, some part   
of their hands had been lopped off. Sometimes it was no more than a   
finger. This time it was the whole right hand. Since the organs had   
in every other occurance had been placed in the exact same place, the   
police surmised that these wounds had occured in the struggle rather   
than for the ritual.   
"That's good. Have the lab check the fibers off jackets as a   
priority. It was pretty cold out here last night. We might just hit a   
shortcut. What's the vic's personal history?"  
Namura filpped open his notebook. "Jessica Mormon. She was a   
transfer student out at the local College. Her driver's licence says 22,   
but I doubt it. Most of her records are at the United States Consolate.   
I'll try to dig a little deeper. She only had her driver's licence on   
her."  
Grogan swore. "Goddamnit! If she was a U.S. citizen, The   
Leiutenant will come down on me like a ton of bricks to get this case   
solved. Christ." Grogan looked down at the body. "Is the CS team   
done with this scene?"  
Namura nodded, "Yeah, Hideki. They finished the perimeter about   
a half hour ago."  
"Then lets get this place cleaned up. We got alot of background   
to do. Time's a waisting!"  
  
Aeka entered the Masaki house, took off her shoes, and went into   
the living room. Nobiyuki was there, watching a news broadcast. "Hello,  
Mr. Masaki," she said, as she entered the room. "What are you doing   
here?"  
Nobiyuki chuckled. "Well, I do live here, Miss Aeka."  
Aeka smiled as well. Putting her hand over her mouth, she   
blushed. "That didn't come out as well as i could have, did it? I was   
just wondering why you were home so early."  
"Well, I finished my most recent blueprints early, and so I   
didn't need to stay at work. I was hoping for a nice afternoon with you   
and Miss Ryoko, but neither of you were home, so I sat down and turned on   
the news."  
"I'm sorry I wasn't here, but it took longer to get the shrine   
floor dry than I thought it would. Ryoko was visiting with Washu last   
time I saw her. But if I know her, she didn't stay there long. I would   
think that she would be bothering Lord Tenchi right now, but he's at   
school." Suddnely, they both heard Tenchi's voice from outside, yelling   
at someone. Aeka shook her head. "Nevermind."   
Tenchi entered the Masaki house, still yelling at Ryoko. Ryoko   
had clamped onto Tenchi's jacket, and she refused to let go. "But   
Tenchi," she said in her most plaintive voice as he tried to extracate   
himself from her grip, "I just wanted to greet you when you came home."   
Tenchi immediately felt sorry for Ryoko. "Oh, sorry Ryoko.   
It's just that when you usually do that, it turns into a fiasco!"  
Ryoko, noticing that Aeka was watching, decided to toss a few   
cheerful barbs at her rival. Continuing in the same voice, she said   
"Well, that only happens because a certain princess can't get it into her  
head that she should give up."  
Tenchi fliched at the remark, waiting for the inevitable retort   
that would start these things every time. But the retort never came.   
Instead, Aeka gasped, staring at the television. "Aeka.." Tenchi said,   
afraid that she had been hurt. He streched out his hand. But she didn't  
even notice that, she was so fixated upon the screen. "What is it?"   
Tenchi asked. Still she ignored him. Just as he was about to touch her,  
she flinched away. She yelled, "Don't touch me, anyone!" and ran up the   
stairs.   
Ryoko was as worried as Tenchi was. This was not like Aeka at   
all. She flew up after the fleeing princess of Jurai, but was unable to   
stop her before she got to her door. Not that that would stop Ryoko.   
She threw open the door that Aeka had closed just a few seconds before,   
and gout out "Ae-" before she suddenly was teleported to a point 3 meters  
above the lake. Ryoko fell into the lake with a unceremonious splash.  
Sputtering, she got up out of the lake and stormed back into the   
house. Tenchi and Nobiyuki looked both worried and startled as she   
entered from the outside. "Aeka has set up a security field around her   
room. It's just like the one she set up outside your room once, Tenchi,  
remember? No one can get in without her permission....except for maybe   
one person..."  
  
Washu sat on her cushon as Nobiyuki, Tenchi, and Ryoko entered   
her lab. "What can I do for you?" she asked in a cheery voice.   
Ryoko got right to the point. "Aeka has locked herself in her   
room and has placed a security lock around it. Can you help us get in   
there Washu? We're worried."  
Washu smiled. "Yes, I can, but no, I won't."  
Tenchi asked, "Why not?"  
Washu turned, still smiling. "Because you didn't call me   
Little Washu!"  
Everyone facefaulted except for Ryoko. Instead, she screamed   
"WOULD YOU BE SERIOUS?!"  
Washu stopped smiling. "I still won't do it. It would be an   
affront to Aeka's privacy. Why don't we find out why she locked herself   
in her room before we barge in, hmmm?"  
Nobiyuki, Ryoko and Tenchi looked ashamed. "Well, she was   
watching the news when she suddenly gasped and ran up the stairs"   
Nobiyuki mused.  
"Was it a galactic news program?" Washu asked.  
"No, just a local news broadcast from the local Television   
station."   
"Hmmmmm. Can you remember what story was going on?"  
"No, I was too busy listening to my son and Ryoko."  
"Hmmm. Well, let's see if the lab sensors recorded the traffic  
....They did...hmm"  
"What is it Washu?"  
"The story doesn't mean anything to me. It's just about a series  
of recent serial murders. While they are disturbing, I can't see   
anything to make Aeka extremely...wait, is that a tree symbol?"  
"Yeah. What do you make of it, Washu?" Tenchi asked.  
Washu shrugged. "I dunno." Everyone facefaulted...again.   
"Hey, I've been cooped up for a long time! I don't keep up with Juraian   
criminal elements, if that is what this is."  
Tenchi turned to the door. "Then we'll ask Grandfather, he might   
know."  
  
Katsuhiko sat in his shrine office, fininshing up the days work.   
Suddenly, there was a knock on his door. "Come," he said. Tenchi,   
Nobiyuki, Ryoko and Washu entered the shrine office. "Hello, everyone.   
What is it?"  
Tenchi began "Aeka has locked herself in her room, and we don't   
quite know why."  
Washu continued. "We think that it might have had something to   
do with this story on the television." Washu called up her computer and   
displayed the recorded story for Katsuhiko.  
As Katsuhiko watched, he became more and more agitated. "No,   
they couldn't have come here. How could they have found-of course."  
Ryoko grew impatient. "What is it?!"  
Katsuhiko pointed at the ritualistic symbols drawn at the crime   
scene. "These symbols are from a group, more of a cult, that is very   
secret in Jurai society. The Sacred Sapling cult."  
"The what?"  
"The Sacred Sapling cult is a group of Juraians who believe that   
the Royal Family's bloodline shold be kept pure as possible, from both   
other species and from common stock. They were the main reason why I   
never returned to Jurai."  
Washu nodded. "I see. As the son of a Human and the Emperor   
of Jurai, they would see you as something undesireable. But why would   
they be on earth, and attacking humans?"  
"I suspect that this is the work of a sect within that cult, the   
Keepers of the Sacred Bark. This is an extreme sect, that believes that   
the purity of the Jurai house is sullied even by simple contact with   
commoners and outworlders. They will try to kill all those who touch the  
Emperor and any of his progeny. The Juraian emperors usually have to put  
down this sect once every so often. But from what I heard, the last   
upsurge and repression was five years ago. It is too early for them to   
move."  
Washu nodded again. "Yes, but with the First Princess, first   
born full blooded Jurain noble, one of the escaped assassins might have   
come out of retirement. He probably followed the Emperor to Earth when   
he visited. The cult member would be unable to stand the thought of an   
entire world of outworlders in contact with the princesses of Jurai-"  
Katsuhiko interrupted her. "No, just Aeka. Sasami's fusion with  
Tsunami is unknown, and she is not the heir apparent. Only if Aeka died   
would they go after people Sasami has had contact with. That's why Aeka   
locked herself in her room. She doesn't want to be responsible for any   
more deaths."  
Ryoko shook her head. "From what you're telling me, they would   
also be after Tenchi, especially since he has the Lighthawk wings. That   
much power in the hands of what they would see as a mongrel would be...."  
Tenchi finished her sentince. "A total affront to their values."  
Nobiyuki asked, "And the police? Will they be able to do   
anything?"  
"Against a Juraian? If he doesn't have an energy blade, he   
probably has a shield. Most of the Keepers of the Sacred Bark come from   
the nobility."  
"Then what can we do?" Nobiyuki asked.  
"The only thing we can do. Find him and bring him to justice."   
Tenchi said. 


End file.
